Ashish Sharma/Prithvi Vallabh AT#5 - Smiling Mystery!! - Page 50

For the first time in its nine-year history, the annual Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival has chosen its home turf, India, as its country in focus. In all, 140 films from 45 countries will screened, of which 33 titles are from India. The festival will be held in Mumbai from May 23-May 27 at Liberty Cinema and Metro Inox.

"This is the year where the highest ever number of Indian films will be shown, Festival Director Sridhar Rangayan told Scroll.in. "In the first first year in 2010, we got around 22 Indian films and screened almost all of them. This year, the submissions were close to 65, out of which we are screening 33 Indian films, both features and shorts.

This year's theme is "Together with Pride. The festival will open with production designer-turned director Vandana Kataria'sNoblemen. An adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, the Kunal Kapoor-starrer is about a drama teacher who tries to tackle bullying in an all-boys boarding school. In all, six Indian feature films will be screened at the festival, apart from 23 shorts and four documentaries.

Founded in 2010 by Rangayan, Kashish is billed as the largest queer festival in South Asia. But this year's theme has something to offer to everyone, Rangayan said. "The whole theme of the festival is Together with Pride' and it goes beyond just the LGBTQ space, the festival director said. "Each person is different, but is also similar in many ways. Whether you are LGBTQ or heterosexual or fair-skinned, dark skinned, fat or thin, all of us can take pride in who we are. If all of us are able to come together, we could recognise our differences and celebrate that.

Rangayan said he was excited about the festival's diverse line-up. "People [from different festivals] usually just focus on the mainstream films and do not focus on so many more independent voices that do not get a theatrical release, he said. "We are happy to have this fantastic range of films. This was a big break for Kashish. The international titles include Dome Karukoski's Tom of Finland from Sweden and Finland, Jakob M Erwa's Center of My World and Anatol Schuster's AIR from Germany, Marcelo Caetano's Body Electric from Brazil and Pablo D'Alo Abba's Materfrom Argentina.

The Indian feature film line-up offers a mix of genres and movies from various parts of the country.

Khejdi from Rajasthan explores similar territory. Written and produced by popular television actor Ashish Sharma (Prithvi Vallabh, Siya Ke Ram), the film is based on Kiran Sharma's short story Sanjha about a trans person in Rajasthan.

"The story just stayed in my mind and I used to keep revisiting it in my head since I first read it in 2013, Sharma said. "The film is about a transgender [person's] journey. But it can be related [to] by any individual who wants to fit in with the society. It is about fighting the norms and is about the social hypocrisy and how an individual's system collapses because of the stance that she takes.

https://scroll.in/reel/878176/it-goes-beyond-the-lgbtq-space-kashish-queer-festival-gears-up-its-for-ninth-edition